


That Old Sinking Feeling

by Medie



Category: Dresden Files - Jim Butcher, Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 11:19:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some days you get to ride a dinosaur through downtown Chicago and some days you end up looking at a town in Maine no one knew existed until last week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Old Sinking Feeling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laurellias](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=laurellias).



> Thanks binz for the awesome beta. All remaining screw ups are Harry's fault. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!)

You know, some days, being a wizard can be a real pain in the ass. I know, I know, being a wizard and having awesome cosmic powers (and, in my case, the itty, bitty living space to go along with them) seems like the very definition of a good time. 

Some days, it is. Some days you get to ride a dinosaur through downtown Chicago and some days you end up looking at a town in Maine no one knew existed until last week. 

If you're thinking that I'm joking about that one, I'm really not. Eight days ago? No one knew Storybrooke, Maine even existed. The town just appeared in the middle of nowhere. Magically appeared, obviously.

If my life were a movie, this would be when the Jaws theme started to play. Thankfully, Storybrooke doesn't have much in the way of beach-side property. 

Not that I'd gotten anywhere near the town yet. I hadn't even gotten out of my rental. Pulling over onto the side of the road I looked out at the sign welcoming me to Storybrooke. It was in bad shape, almost as bad as the miles of pot-hole ridden pavement I'd driven over to get here. 

So, yeah, Storybrooke. With visions of a modern day Brigadoon in my head, I got out of the car warily. Which isn't exactly easy for a guy my height, but towns don't magically appear on their own. There was a pretty good chance the welcoming committee looked worse than the sign did and despite all insistence to the contrary, I wasn't in any hurry to get myself eaten. 

Finally unfolding myself from the car, I closed the door carefully and took a step or two away from it. Not much and not far. If I needed to make good on my escape, distance counted, but I ventured out enough that I'd see an attack coming.

I gave it a good few minutes—you don't rush an ambush—then rolled my shoulders and reached out with my staff. If you're thinking that was probably a big mistake on my part, you'd be right. As soon as I did sent a pulse of energy into the air, me, my staff, and my bony ass got thrown back about twenty feet.

So that would be the magical barrier that Martha had mentioned. Let's just say this one for the record; using a guy's own magic to pitch him head over heels? Smart? Yes. Creative? Yup. Good way to conserve energy? You got it.

Dick move? Absofuckinglutely. 

I supposed I should be grateful I landed in the bushes and not on the concrete or my car, but it still hurt like hell. _I_ hurt like hell, for that matter. My staff had landed somewhere behind me, and for a moment I stared at the sky and cursed. I cursed a lot. 

If you're new to the party, you might have missed the part where I've had a pretty godawful decade or so. Seriously. If you knew how many apocalypses we've flirted with in the last ten years because of lil' ol' me (and, yeah, the wizard on his ass in the bushes is the one who keeps saving the world. That's just how fucked we are), you'd never get out of bed again. 

Major covers over the head territory. Most days, I was leading the blanket brigade.

Well, I _tried_ to. The problem was that Mouse and Mister were the sort who'd come in after me if I was late with breakfast. Mouse, being the dog and the muscle, did the actual dragging, while Mister, cat and mastermind, supervised things from his perch on my pillow. 

They hadn't gotten the chance this morning. This morning, I'd been yanked out of bed by Martha Liberty. She's Senior Council in a big way, so when she shows up at your apartment door, you get up and you listen while thanking every power in every heaven that you do not sleep in the nude. 

She told me about this mysterious town appearing in Maine, and here I am. 

"Stars," I sighed, trying to get up and getting a twig in the ass for my trouble, "I don't get paid enough for this." 

Ignoring the twig and its nine brothers that showed up to get their own jabs in, I struggled to my feet and went after my staff. I tripped twice during my search, damn near went face first into a stump at one point, but finally struggled back up onto the road with my staff in hand. 

I approached the barrier with more caution this time and that's when I felt it. Subtle magic and damned impressive. I'd been so focused before that I'd missed the slight pressure on my thoughts attempting to direct me elsewhere. It wanted me to turn away, try a different road, and I let the spell play itself out and bring up the memory of a detour a few miles back.

I whistled. Whoever had worked up this spell was a master. Even focused on the spell as I was now, it was difficult to identify it, much less pin it down. _Impressive_ work. I gave them points for creativity (even I wasn't sure if the road I remembered was actually there or not), but they promptly lost them on account of potentially illegal activity. Messing with a guy's mind might be creative magic, but not worth getting your head chopped off over.

I briefly considered forgiving the Council for sending me out here. I don't get to enjoy magic for magic's sake much anymore; generally, I'm too busy dealing with those aforementioned apocalypses, so even this was a little bit of a treat. 

Stars, but I wanted to meet the person who'd woven this almost as much as I was terrified to. This was not the kind of spell that you trotted out on a whim. Someone was working very hard to keep people out of this town, and in my experience, that's never good news.

Whether they were trying to protect us or protect the town didn't matter; my spidey senses were doing the rumba. 

I tapped the barrier with a little more caution this time, sending a slow pulse of magic through the thing to sound it out. What filtered back to me said it was big. _Really_ big. Big enough to contain an entire town, and putting out enough energy to explain why the Ways in this area had suddenly vanished. I hadn't been Liberty's first stop, a few people had tried getting around it through the Nevernever. Only a one had made it back thus far and she'd passed out three seconds after her boots hit dirt. 

That had been five days ago. She hadn't woken up yet. 

With that in mind, I sure as hell wasn't about to just go wandering through it to find a way in. I stood there and stared at the spot where my magic said the barrier was. I stood there for a long time. There had to be another way through, around, or beneath it; we just needed to kick until we found it. Class project for the junior Wardens, maybe. There was a way through and we'd find it. 

Everyone, sooner or later, was going be taking a shot at this thing. It was our very own magical Everest. It was there and we were going to climb it. 

I finally got back into my extremely old and extremely cheap rental and sat there for a minute, wondering if this was how Wile E. Coyote felt every time he looked down and realized he'd run off the cliff again. 

Probably. 

Anyone got a Help sign handy?


End file.
